Mega Millions Lottery Jackpot Increases to $1.6 Billion

There was no winner for the Mega Millions jackpot on Friday, bringing Tuesday’s upcoming prize to the largest in U.S. lottery history.

The Mega Millions jackpot is now worth at least $1.6 billion, according to a report by CNN. The staggering $878 million jackpot on Friday had no winners, as the numbers drawn were 65, 53, 32, 15 and 70, and the Mega Ball was 7. The jackpot has now rolled 25 times without a winner, and the prize just keeps getting sweeter each time.

If Tuesday night’s historic drawing his a winner, and they take the one-time cash pay-out option, they will get just under $905 million all at once. If they had done the same earlier this week, they would have taken home about $667 million.

Of course, no matter what the game is a boon for the federal government, which will take a 25 percent tax on the winnings whenever they are handed over, and collect more taxes down the road. In addition, most states will take some smaller taxes if the winner is living in their state.

Someone’s number must come up soon, as the last Mega Millions jackpot winner was on July 24. At the time, a group of 11 people, all in California, split a $543 million prize. As usual, the growing pay-out has brought more and more attention and money to the jackpot. Since this past Tuesday, another $400 million has been added to the jackpot.

This Tuesday’s drawing officially breaks the U.S. lottery record set by Powerball in 2016. At the time, the prize was a whopping $1.5686 million. Winning tickets were reportedly sold to three separate people — one in California, one in Florida and one in Tennessee.

While no one won Friday’s grand prize, many secondary winning tickets are out there. Mega Millions told CNN that there are over 34.4 million winning tickets since July out in the world, and they are worth as much as $1 million. On Friday night alone, 15 tickets worth $1 million were reportedly sold.

As always, the nay-sayers of the world are out there reminding people of the statistical unlikelihood of winning the lottery. According to USA Today, a person is about 258 times more likely to be struck by lightning this year than to win the Mega Millions jackpot. Likewise, they are 80 times likely to be killed by a shark by the end of 2018 than to cash the prize in.

The next Mega Millions jackpot drawing is on Tuesday, Oct. 23 at 11 p.m. ET. Winning numbers are typically announced on local news, or on the Mega Millions website.